Literal Mess
by The Cosmic Penguin
Summary: A for-fun fic in which Kirby and Meta Knight obtain a pair of magical pens that grants them authorial powers! What kind of havoc—and donuts—will they rain down upon fair Popstar? [Both anime and gameverse; many characters also cameo]
1. Introduction: Magical Powers

A/N: Hi there! This is Cos. I was asked to write the A/N for this story. If you've read the description, I'm sure you've already guessed who, but if not, well, I think you'll find out by reading. Reading will pretty much explain everything in this story -without- the A/Ns. Anyway, this is not just a story-it's a total, literary mockery. A parody of writing, or metafiction, if you will. There's at least one mockery/joke of something in each chapter, and if you wish to guess it, by all means, do so. No matter how you take this, I hope you enjoy this great, big, ball of literary mess!

* * *

_Once upon a time, it was a beautiful day in Dream Land. It was completely average and perfect, which is what made it such a good day to start a chaos-inducing event._

"Agh, Meta Knight! Help me out over here! Writing this is hard!"

Meta Knight walked over to where Kirby was scribbling something in a notebook with a glowing, purple office pen. Both puffballs were unusually tense today, and were on their edges at any dialogue the other threw at them. "Are you kidding me? You can't get past the intro?"

"Hey!" Kirby snapped as Meta Knight tried and failed to look over his nonexistent shoulder. "Writing a beginning is hard! I've never done this before! Why don't YOU do it?"

"I've never written a story either," Meta Knight stated as he twirled his own glowing pen around. His was green instead of purple, but otherwise generally appeared the same. "And especially not a story that can actually impact our lives. You better make that beginning good, because the storywriting bosses might descend upon us in a fury."

"_Don't. SAY _that," Kirby commanded. "Otherwise, do you know what'll happen if that accidentally gets down somewhere with that pen? Some storywriting boss will descend upon us in a fury, and I'll point them toward you since you aren't helping."

"Get real. Come on, they say writing takes practice. Just start practicing already."

"Shouldn't you?" Kirby countered. "You have a pen, too."

"Kirby, shouldn't you write something down to explain to the audience what's going on? Like how we got the pens? Or maybe how we got to this point?"

"Get real. Who the heck's reading this?" Kirby said, doodling in the sidelines. He was about to put the finishing touches on a Scarfy when he thought of something. "I wonder if this pen will cause that drawing to come to life like Adeleine's paintings do…"

Kirby stared down at the paper sketch and shuddered. Meta Knight yawned.

"Get real. It's an authorial pen, not an artist's pen. Authors don't natively draw—_well_, that is."

"So we'll instantly s—"

"No Kirby!" Meta Knight pressed his paw over Kirby's mouth. "Weren't you saying something about this being K-rated?"

Kirby thought for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. "Ahm mmm, ee uh ohn—"

Meta Knight took his paw off Kirby's mouth.

"Oh yeah, we were going to keep it K-rated because we're good examples. We'd never swear, even in a scrap story." Kirby grinned innocently.

"No problem. As long as I get a decent role, I don't care. But please don't make me look like a dumb—"

Kirby tackled Meta Knight to the ground and actually managed to cover his mouth. Meta Knight looked pretty angry that Kirby had knocked his mask off, but nodded. Kirby rolled off of him and let him sit up. "Sorry. That was my fault this time."

"Whatever. We can scratch it out if we actually write it down. Let's s—er, forget the actual story-writing for now. If these things have magical powers, I think it's high time we check them out…"

"Hey! No explanation to—"

"No explanation to the readers! Sorry, they like fan theories so they can make them up themselves!" Kirby sang as he skipped out the door.

Meta Knight sighed. "Aren't you the egotistical one now." He picked up his pen. "Well I'll show you who's more responsible."

The blue puffball walked over to the paper. When he got there, he found an explanation and a note already on the paper. The note stated:

_Ha ha; fooled ya!_

_ -Kirby_

Meta Knight rolled his eyes before dashing out the door after him. It was a good thing that Kirby had written down the explanation, but he seriously wished that his new pen would have told him that Kirby was pranking him.

_Get him back later. Figure out what this pen does __now._

The blue puffball smirked. Yeah, that was exactly what he was going to do…

...right after he found Kirby...


	2. Test Write

_So I don't know where Meta Knight went, but I'm going to practice this writing stuff by myself. Shouldn't it just be like some sort of magic thing? I wonder if it will possess and control me and tell me how to use it like sort of tutorial! Yeah, that'd be—_

Kirby stopped writing and looked around. He glanced above his head.

No magical dialogue box appeared. No magical force controlled him and told him how to use the pen. Kirby punched the ground in a fury, but this didn't help him feel any better since he didn't have an actual fist. Instead, he picked the pen back up and—

_CHEAPSKATE! _

Kirby relaxed the grip on his pen slightly. That last line had almost torn through the other side of the paper, but he didn't really care. Then he thought of something he needed to add.

_And you can't tell me not to use multiple exclamation points, because I'm taking my frustration out! I guess that's what I'm supposed to do in my journal, but that's seriously formally. Really serious-kind-of-formal, got it? You can't call it a girly-diary just because it's pink; I_

Kirby stopped. Was it really such a good idea to bring up his journal here? What would be the point when he was practicing writing? That would be acknowledging that he really DID have an audience, and of course, we all know that's impossible since they're just practicing their writing and this is definitely not on FFN. And since he was writing for nobody but himself, it would be like proving to himself that his journal was not a girly-diary. He already knew that. Kirby considered crossing out those sentences. Then he did so.

But since FFN does not accept strikethrough text, the audience will just have to use their imaginations on that last one.

Another reason why strikethrough wouldn't work out in this story is because Kirby's pen granted him the ability to write in bold, italics, and underline, so there would be no replacement for strikethrough text unless everything was capitalized. And neither Kirby nor the author (who had no real power over this fic anyway) felt like writing or typing with the caps lock on to replace the strikethrough text…not to mention that all caps for strikethrough would have looked really strange. Kirby rolled his eyes at technology before putting the last purple ink splotch over the terrible sentences he had just written. He scanned the page to make sure those sentences had been obliterated. Unfortunately, he could still read them, though whether this was because he had written them himself or whether he really had done that bad of a job crossing them out will remain unknown to him, and therefore the readers.

Kirby sighed in frustration, but decided to move on. After a few minutes of staring at the page, he ripped it out of the notebook and tossed it on the ground. He started to have second thoughts about leaving it lying around when the wind scooped it up and out of his reach, but the breeze's fun was soon ruined when Kirby inhaled the paper. He hadn't wanted to eat it, but he could spit it out when he reached a shredder. There was an ink smudge on his lips that he could just feel was there, but when he rubbed his paw, it had already dried to his mouth. Kirby grimaced, but ignored it—after all, he'd inhaled worse before.

"But at least I could spit it ou—OH no Kirby, get a hold of yourself; you can handle a little ink stain. After all, you can handle humongous villains. I mean, you've trekked through vast wastelands and swamps and other areas of who-knows-what, and you're complaining about an ink smudge on your lip? I mean, if you get a paper cut and then licked the blood off it, it'd still be kinda the same, except not permanent, and better-tasting than oil…"

Then Kirby paused.

"Wait…is mentioning blood still K-rated? I'm not sure…I mean, what if I DO get a paper cut? What if I want a blood-orange? What if I want to describe something as being 'blood red'? What do I do then?" The pink puffball started pacing around. "Dah, I'm gonna have to censor everything…or should I ignore it? I don't want to cut anything out, but I don't wanna break the rules either…"

Approximately five minutes later, Kirby came to the conclusion that he could mention getting a paper cut as long as he wasn't descriptive…But he would still jack the rating up to K+ (which was generally pointless, as the author had already rated it K+ from the moment of posting it). With all interruptions set aside, Kirby plopped down in front of his notebook to continue writing once more. He stared at the top of the page, wondering what to write down, unknowingly mimicking every author in existence who has undeniably done the same thing. And then, like every author in existence, he wrote two words at the top of the page as a stalling tactic.

_Test Section:_

Kirby glared at the paper. Coming up with something intelligent to test this out with would be a little difficult. He stuck the butt end of the pen into his cheek, thinking.

_If I write the word 'donut', will a donut appear?_

_Donut_

Kirby looked up. There was no donut in front of him.

_Well, maybe if I focus enough…_

Kirby desperately fought to keep the image of a wonderful, chocolate-frosted donut with multi-colored sprinkles on top, levitating in a pink, bubbly subdimension of his thought-bubble. He scribbled 'donut' out as fast as he could onto the paper and looked up.

A wonderful, warm, chocolate-frosted donut with multi-colored sprinkles on top was levitating in front of him. Kirby's eyes literally lit up, and he grabbed the donut and ate it. The pink puffball stuck his paws in his mouth and pulled them out, free of grease, frosting, sprinkles, and glowy-stuff left over from the subdimension aura around it (how a glow is _edible_, much less _sticky_, is a well-kept secret only known by top logicians). Kirby moaned in delight as he licked his lips.

_Could I have some cookies now?_

_Cook_

Kirby had been carefully watching the area in front of him while he was keeping the image in half of his mind. Much to his surprise, the cookies appeared before he had even finished the 'k'. Kirby hesitantly reached up to tap the platter of chocolate chip cookies in front of him.

They were solid. Tangible. Completely _real_, and therefore, completely _edible_.

Kirby inhaled the cookies, random lacy napkin, and platter before spitting the platter and the random lacy napkin out to the side. As Kirby was now the author of the platter and the napkin's destinies, when he forgot about them they would magically vanish until Kirby ever needed them again, which probably would not be any time soon. The platter and napkin disappeared as the pink puffball turned back to his notebook page.

_I wonder if this will work if I write it on something else? Let me test it out._

Kirby's first attempt was on some fallen tree bark (writing on an actual tree was a definite do-not-do because most trees in Dream Land had the tendency to randomly become sentient). However, the pen was still just a pen no matter how magical it was, and therefore did not work very well on the tree bark. The second and third attempts were on a rock and a blade of grass, but these yielded only mildly better results. Kirby wiped the pen tip on his paw, wishing he had a basket of strawberries.

Something hit the ground with a soft thud in front of him. Kirby's gaze jerked up instinctively, looking for any newcomer. Instead, his eyes met a small basket filled with strawberries. It even had a pink, plaid ribbon on it like the one he had been thinking of. The puffball stared at it long and hard before inhaling the strawberries and sucking on them, deep in thought. He swallowed the strawberries before making another quick mark on his paw while thinking about a bowl of oatmeal. True to his suspicions, a plastic, blue bowl with a silver spoon appeared in front of him, filled with hot, steaming oatmeal cooked in the exact way he had been thinking of. Kirby picked up the bowl of oatmeal and scraped it all into his mouth, as it would have been improper to inhale a good bowl of oatmeal.

"So all I have to do is make a mark while thinking of something, and it happens…" Kirby grinned. "This should be interesting. I wonder if Meta Knight knows that."

Kirby then stopped, as he realized that Meta Knight was nowhere in the immediate vicinity. He scanned the area for him, but found nothing. With only a slight bit of embarrassment, Kirby realized that he must have left his friend behind in his rush. He pondered the option of scribbling while imagining Meta Knight, but decided against trying that in case he accidentally created another clone of the blue puffball. Meta Knight already hated the events of Amazing Mirror. He wouldn't be pleased at any reminder to them.

Kirby shrugged. Meta Knight was sure to catch up eventually.

"Lemme see if this actually works…" Kirby started, already grinning slyly. He raised his pen slightly, in preparation to dot his paw-slash-arm with ink. "CLOVER!"

A clover patch grew up on the slope in front of him. The pink puffball bent down and picked up a five-leafed clover before sticking it in his mouth for safekeeping. "Good. CUPCAKES!"

A fancy cupcake shelf appeared in front of Kirby, with carefully-designed cupcakes crammed into every space. Kirby drooled, but decided to save some for Meta Knight. He put up a fictional barrier around it so that it could sit there without being influenced by anything until the _exact_ moment he needed it. "FURRY CATS!"

A mob of furry cats appeared around Kirby. A few moments after they appeared, they started rubbing him affectionately. Kirby was thoroughly enjoying their attention until he realized there were no furless cats. He didn't shout anything this time because there was a cat's tail around his mouth, but he made a quick mark on his cheek. When he spotted at least one hairless cat, he grinned.

"That's a relief. I love all cats equally, after all. Okay, guys, you can go home."

The cats stopped and looked at Kirby strangely. Kirby sweatdropped.

"Oh yeah, you don't have a home since I just created you. Well, go to Cat Paradise then. There's a smoothie hut there."

The cats jumped through a magical portal to Cat Paradise, which was the rough equivalent of a fancy Floridian vacation…if the heat was your thing, which it was for the cats.

Kirby was pondering what to do next when he heard something land behind him. He turned around to see Meta Knight sitting in the grass behind him, his wings sagging in fatigue.

"I've been looking for you." Meta Knight replied flatly as he caught his breath.

"Well, I was right here, in plain sight. That's…kinda why I picked an open field."

Meta Knight stopped for a moment. "KIRBY, YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW THAT PLAIN SIGHT IS THE **LAST** PLACE I LOOK FOR SOMEBODY! I FLEW ALL AROUND THE IMMEDIATE AREA LOOKING FOR YOU! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO KEEP UP _SIXTY_ MILES PER HOUR WHEN I COULD ONLY GO _THIRTY_ MILES PER HOUR _TOPS_ DURING 'AIR RIDE'?!"

Kirby stopped to think. "Well…no, not really. I don't have any wings. _Wait_ a second…"

The pink puffball got a grin on his face, but Meta Knight held up his paw. "_No_ Kirby. Save that…for the next chapter…"

Kirby pouted, but acknowledged the advice. "Yeah, you're right. I've done enough work in this chapter. I think I've done, what…1800 words now?"

"1887 words pre-editing, actually." Meta Knight corrected. "And that was just from that sentence."

"Whatever. Roughly 1900. Do you know how these pens work?"

"Somewhat. Can you transfer flashbacks through them, or are you going to explain it to me?"

Kirby shrugged. "I don't know. Want me to test it out?"

Meta Knight's paws tightened. "Try it out, but for the love of fruit candy, do NOT try any mind-control gimmicks or you will be severely sorry when you get done."

Kirby thought about saying that if he kept him under mind control forever or gave him amnesia that he wouldn't be able to do anything anyway, but hypothesized that if he told him that, he would never find out about the pen's powers. So the pink puff walked over to his blue comrade and placed the pen just a few millimeters over his arm before pressing it to his skin and slowly drawing random squiggly lines as he thought about everything he had learned about the pen. When he was finished, he lifted the pen and stared at Meta Knight. At first, the knight seemed frozen. Then he flicked his wings and brought a paw to his…forehead, if he technically even had one.

"Well Kirby, it worked, but I have a bit of a headache now…"

"Then wish up some aspirin or headache medicine or stuff."

Meta Knight glared at Kirby. "I don't take aspirin. That's stupid."

Kirby mock-gasped. "You don't? What kind of adult-wannabe are you?"

"Hey, I'm the legal age to consider myself an adult. Are _you_?"

"Actually, yes." Kirby stated triumphantly. Meta Knight ignored him, much to his dismay.

"Whatever. Have you thought of your running gag yet?"

"My what?" Kirby looked as if he had been caught off guard, mainly because he _had_ been. "Why do we need a running gag?"

"Every story needs one, even if it's only for a chapter or two." Meta Knight argued. "Be original, because I'm going to base mine partially off yours."

"Why?"

"Well, I was thinking of saying 'get real' every chapter since we said that quite a bit during the first chapter, but that's ultra-boring. Then I was thinking of making snow references all the time considering that HAL implied I was close to snow, but I'm not sure if that's funny enough."

"I guess it is if it's well-timed…" Kirby mused. "Well, we've got like forty chapters to think of it. This is probably going to be sheer and utter randomness for a while, actually, so it won't really matter too much. But still, it's a good point to think—"

Kirby froze for a moment, his eyes staring off into space. Meta Knight watched him with a quizzical expression that nobody could see anyway because he was wearing his mask.

"I GOT IT!" Kirby shouted. Then he paused. "Hm, that could use some formatting. _**I GOT IT!"**_

Meta Knight took his paws off the sides of his head. "Got _what_?"

"My running gag, duh!" Kirby announced. "It's awesomely random!"

"Prove it." Meta Knight challenged, crossing his arms. Kirby smirked.

"Okay then. WAFFLE!"

A gigantic waffle started falling from the sky above Meta Knight. Unfortunately, Kirby was standing too close to Meta Knight for the waffle to ever miss hitting both of them, so the duo was crushed under the giant waffle. Syrup started pour onto the waffle out of nowhere as the two puffballs clambered out from under the waffle. Meta Knight sent a cold glare (ha ha, get it, ice puns?) at Kirby, who merely rubbed his head.

"Woopsies…uh, wanna waffle? It's got syrup…hey, where's the _butter_?"

A huge slab of butter fell down from the sky and splashed into the syrup puddle, which resulted in the two puffballs being swept off their feet by a syrup tidal wave.

"Kirby, you really shouldn't have said that…"

"Let's just eat the waffle. I'm not gonna bother putting it on a plate at this point…"


	3. Cover Art Calamity

_A/N: Kirby, do you think anybody will understand that this doesn't take place after the last two chapters? I mean, we kinda just wrote it up and stuck it in there so that nobody would be confused about the cover art..._

**Stop worrying about that Meta Knight. We stuck in the beginning of the next chapter, so maybe it's for the better that they think it takes place after chapter 2. Just hope that no-one will notice...**

* * *

_There were some mornings that_

"WAIT!" Kirby shouted. Then he paused. "Hm, that could use some formatting. How about—"

Meta Knight quickly put on some heavy…'ear' protection (if they even have actual ears, but Mike's second headguard is an accurate picture) as Kirby changed the formatting.

"_**Wait!"**_ Kirby shouted.

Meta Knight sighed in relief.

"Hm, not good enough." Kirby grinned.

Meta Knight held up his paw. "Kirby, what could you—"

Kirby jumped up on his tip-toes and struck a pose as he looked toward the heavens. _**"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"**_

Kirby looked down from his pose to see Meta Knight sprawled on the floor, covered in blue electricity. A sweatdrop appeared next to Kirby's head. "Uh, whoopsies. I need to watch my volume."

"Kirby, it might help if you state the exact decibels every time you yell. That way, it will give others enough delay to cover their ears."

"But the reason I'm yelling is because I want people to hear me! I don't want them to cover their ears!"

"Well at the very least, it might help you to consider how loud exactly you're making your voice in this."

"Sheesh, you could yell…" Kirby muttered.

"Yeah Kirby, but you know that my voice wasn't meant for yelling. I don't yell anything besides Fumu's name very often; therefore, if I yell, my voice might magically or metaphorically break from extreme use. Good logic."

"But this is a story. Can't you fix it if it breaks?" Kirby argued.

"Kirby. It doesn't work that way."

"Whatever. This isn't the point of this chapter."

"Yeah Kirby," Meta Knight cut in. "I know what it's about. It's about—"

"It's about the cover!" Dedede exclambolated out of nowhere.

Kirby and Meta Knight looked far less than pleased. In fact, they looked the exact opposite of pleased. Kirby clenched his paw while Meta Knight tried to look like he wasn't upset. This was pretty easily accomplished since he was wearing a mask, which was making Kirby more than a little upset than he already was. There was no way that Kirby wanted to be seen as not as calm as Meta Knight!

Meta Knight stood up even farther on tiptoe and flicked his wings open. "First, Dedede, we're the authors so only WE can create words. If you use something like 'exclambolated', it's ours because we're writing. And second, who the heck made _you_ boss of the cov—"

Kirby smirked, and in a flash, he whipped out his pen and streaked ink on the side of Meta Knight's mask while he was distracted. The metal plate teleported over to Kirby's paw, and he waved it tauntingly as the blue puff glared at him. Meta Knight growled at Kirby (quite the unusual sound) before tackling him. Kirby threw the mask over his nonexistent shoulder, and it skidded until it reached a corner. There was no definite background, but the first thing they thought of was a huge, empty warehouse. The scene changed to a huge, empty warehouse, and the mask slid across the floor until it hit a corner.

**(As you can see, the puffballs have learned a bit about improving sentence vocabulary, readability, and et cetera in the comparison between the third-to-last sentence and the last sentence.)**

Meta Knight stopped wrestling with Kirby and glared up at the sky. "Hey, who the heck wrote—"

Kirby, who had already pushed Meta Knight underneath him, seized the opportunity to smack his cheeks, which coincidentally happened to be one of the most sensitive parts of a puffball's body. Meta Knight let go of his grip on Kirby's paws, and the pink puff attempted to pin both his arms and his wings down at the same time. Meta Knight struggled to throw Kirby off of him, but instead the two just flopped on the side. Dedede walked up in front of the camera as the two puffs tried to resolve their argument. All that was visible was his belt.

Suddenly, the (format suddenly switched. And so did the writing intelligence; seriously, who uses 'suddenly' twice in a five-word sentence?)

Dedede: Hey hey, am I too close to the camera?

(Dedede looked around.)

Dedede: Hey, isn't there anyone here?

(Suddenly, the author grabbed the story reins while Kirby and Meta Knight weren't paying attention.)

Authoress: Correction, it's 'authoress' in the last sentence; I'm too lazy to change it. Hey Dedede, back your fat butt up about a foot.

(Dedede backs up about a foot. His body is visible, but nothing else is.)

Authoress: Uhhh, back up until I say 'stop'. Just shuffle back slowly…okay…STOP!

(Dedede stops.)

Dedede: No formatting?

Authoress: Nah. I'm not extreme. Caps are enough; otherwise, I just use formatting for emphasis. But never underlining. Underlining has its purpose. But whatever. Whadidya wanna say?

Dedede: Oh!

(Dedede looks toward the camera and wiggled his eyebrows.)

Dedede: This is…Channel D-D-D!

Authoress: No it's not. It's my flipping story, you control freak.

Dedede: K rating!

Authoress: I edited it. But it isn't Channel DDD. It's. MY. Story. Got—

Kirby: Hey, hold it right there, you scoundrel!

(The formatting reverted) back to normal. Kirby and Meta Knight were glaring defiantly at the sky, with both holding pens. Kirby nodded toward Meta Knight, and while the mask had still mysteriously disappeared, the two were in agreement somehow.

"Good arrangement of my lines, Meta Knight. A little old-fantasy-oriented, but it didn't sound moronic either. Pretty good job."

Meta Knight nodded and gave Kirby a thumbs-up. Kirby looked a bit irked since he had no thumbs himself, but passed it off quickly. Kirby stood up on his tip-toes; Meta Knight stood next to him in practically the exact same pose, and the two glared up at the authoress.

"Get your dirty hands off of this, you selfish author!" Kirby snapped. "We, the fandoms, FINALLY get to write our own story…"

"AND YOU'RE JUST GONNA SNAP IT UP ALL OF A SUDDEN!" Meta Knight shouted.

"So you haul your sorry butt out of here!" Kirby finished triumphantly.

The authoress waved her hand, even though nobody saw her in the story and even though she didn't do so in real life. "Fine. See ya, peeps. Or should I say, puffs. I got bigger _fish_ to _fry_. Ha ha ha!"

The three present characters remained frozen for about five minutes. Then Dedede scratched an itch on his side, which prompted Kirby and Meta Knight to give him flat looks.

"What?"

"There's a _point_ to this chapter, you know," the duo chorused.

"It's called 'cover picture'." Meta Knight stated.

"Isn't it 'cover art'?" Kirby raised an eyebrow.

"Who really cares."

"Well hey, _**I**_ want some cover art. I'm a great model. Stick _me_ up there."

"No flippin' way. You aren't even one of the main characters; we are. I'd rather put Sailor Dee up there than you." Meta Knight stated irritably.

Kirby walked over to the camera. "Well, we're in a bit of a problem. Y'see, the authoress publishing this—" He winced at calling her 'the authoress', even if it wasn't directly her story. "Well, she can't draw. She can draw a few pictures of _me_, but forget anyone else. So she couldn't draw a cover for the story."

Kirby coughed and leaned closer to the camera. "MUCH LESS SOMETHING DECENT."

He backed down. "So me and Meta Knight decided to hold a meeting to see what we should use as cover art instead, 'cause we aren't using whatever the authoress happens to put up. Even if it later becomes a past memory, we need a cover NOW. 3's the lucky number. I'm not going another chapter without a cover."

"Kirby, I don't really think we need a cover at this precise moment. I mean, what are we gonna use?" Meta Knight said. He flicked the pen across Dedede's robe and threw him against the wall.

"Yeah we do!"

"No we don't!"

"Yeah we do!"

"No we don't!"

"Yeah we do!"

"No we don't!"

"Yeah we do!"

"No we don't!"

"Yeah INFINITY." Kirby said, crossing his...paws.

Meta Knight sighed. "Well, I guess I agree, but what could we use without making the cover a mockery of our ability? It's kinda…I dunno. What would actually encompass the story, or at least a significant point of it, or some joke, of this fic?"

"You could put _me_ as the cover. I already told you; isn't it a good idea?"

Kirby and Meta Knight glared at him before lightbulbs went off over their heads and they grinned simultaneously.

"Hey Kirby," Meta Knight stated slyly, grinning wider than before. "I have a GREAT idea for what we could put as the cover. It really encompasses the spirit of fiction."

"I, heh, I think I know what you're talking about, my good friend." Kirby agreed. The pink puff winked. "May I do the honors?"

Meta Knight paused. "Ah sure, what the heck? Go ahead."

The screen—er, scene—flashed white. The trio looked up at the ceiling. The puffballs looked very pleased with their efforts.

Dedede clenched his fist.

"Why YOU LITTLE—"

Meta Knight quickly pressed a big red button that appeared out of nowhere.

"[BEEEEEEEP] WHY YOU [BEEEEEEEEEP] AND [BEEEEEEEEEP] I'LL [BEEEEEEEEEEP]…"

* * *

Dedede was asleep on the floor. The puffballs had pretended to sleep while protecting themselves with a magical shield. It deflected the volume of the King's voice, so when he found that he had no audience, he had just decided to take a nap, seeing that he couldn't go anywhere. Kirby and Meta Knight slowly got up and walked over to each other, admiring the ceiling that portrayed the fic's cover.

"Good cover, huh?"

"Yeah. If this doesn't display the point of fictional ignorance, I don't know what will."

"I guess it's so good because it doesn't really have anything to do with the story, am I right?"

"No, what makes it so good is that we were talking about it and it's now part of a joke for just this chapter about how it was so useless. There's about 52 more paragraphs of explanation I could go through for it, but I don't understand everything since I'm not a seasoned author. I just read that off a script."

Meta Knight held up his script to Kirby.

"Hm, it really does have literary information. Looks like just a pile of scrap info. Eh, I guess it has some value. Safekeeping."

Meta Knight shoved the script in his mouth. "Yup, safekeeping."

King Dedede woke from his slumber and staggered over to the puffballs, with renewed rage sparking in his eyes. "You guys…you're terrible. To put a picture like that as the cover…"

The duo exchanged glances.

"Hey, you wanted a picture of yourself as the cover. Now you got it!" Meta Knight stated happily.

"If anything, you should be thanking us," Kirby added, winking. "We weren't even going to _consider_ your idea."

"Grrrrrr…" The king raised his hammer. "My personality dictates that I have a short temper! Take this!"

The king began chasing the puffballs around the room, but the two soon remembered that they had literary pens. They jumped over and behind King Dedede anime-style and landed without him even noticing they were gone (more Fictional Convenience!). Kirby flicked his pen across his cheek and a door opened in front of Dedede. He ran through it and the door disappeared.

"Where did he go?" Meta Knight asked quizzically.

"I dumped him off at his throne room," Kirby responded casually. "After all, I wouldn't really be happy if I was in his case either."

"Neither would I," agreed Meta Knight. "But fortunately, I didn't steal all the food in Dream Land, so there's no excuse for me."

The two puffballs created a larger door and jumped through. They landed outside Kirby's house, where the argument continued before Meta Knight flew home.

"I don't see a logical base there…"

"Kirby, there's more logic than I feel like explaining right now. But just know that I'm right."

"How do I know that if I don't know all the logical facts?"

"Because I _don't _know all the logical facts…"


	4. Part One

There were some mornings that Meta Knight just didn't feel like getting out of bed. Especially if he hadn't wanted to get INTO bed the night before. Particularly if he hadn't finished licking syrup off of himself.

Of course, all of that was fitting his current situation perfectly.

But he really didn't want to get out of bed this morning despite the fact that his crew was expecting him to be up. 6:30 was no time for a sane puffball to get out of bed! (And it wasn't just because he liked staying up late; no, no…) It interfered with their thinking ability and quite possibly even their personality, which may be why Meta Knight was rarely at the same level of easygoing-ness as Kirby. Either way, he really didn't want to get out of bed and was willing to do anything to avoid it. First he tried stuffing himself under the pillows, but soon realized that he was suffocating himself. Then he couldn't get comfortable because his armor got tangled and the blankets, and _dang this was a bad morning_, but he still had the pen, so—

_The pen._

The blue puffball pulled himself upright, despite the weight pulling him down from every angle. If he could get the pen, he could blockade the door and sleep as long as he wanted, and then he would be one very happy puffball indeed. He reached over to grab the pen off the nightstand (which was filled only with video games and math directories), but his eyes were half-closed so he underestimated the size of the gap between the bed and the table…

…which meant that, of course, he fell into the gap and took all the bedding down with him since he was still covered in syrup.

However, Meta Knight was not about to give up getting the pen and going back to sleep. No, he wanted to be determined; he didn't want to be seen as someone who easily gave up! So he ignored all the blankets wrapped around him and grabbed the end of the nightstand. It tilted, but after some shaking, the pen fell off. Of course, the lamp, clock, video games, and everything else sitting on the table came with it, but the only part that matters (story-wise) is that the pen fell on the floor. The blue puffball shook a fifteen-pound _Linear Algebra_ book off his head and rummaged around to find the pen. He picked it up and moved his paw in reach.

"Blockade the door," he muttered sleepily. He briefly noticed that a bunch of metal boxes had appeared in front of the door, and desperately hoped that the floor would not give out.

_It's only for a little…_ He rubbed his eyes. _Get back in bed…with the covers…_

Another scratch from the pen rendered him and the bedding un-sticky-fied. He had to make a separate entry for the bedding to get back on the bed, but at that point he could care less. He used the pen to make his bedding-nest warmer before tossing his armor off, pulling a beanie cap on, and going back to bed.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Halberd crew was eating breakfast downstairs.

"Why do I get the feeling that we'll be the butt of a lot of jokes in this story?" wondered Ax Knight aloud.

Trident Knight put his oatmeal down. "It's because I'm the more serious one, you are the moderately intelligent one, Mace Knight is stupid, and Javelin Knight rips me off and is nowhere to be seen. That's why."

"Hey, I'm not stupid!" Mace Knight protested. "I'm just a little slow on things sometimes."

"Yeah, sorry." Trident Knight sighed. "Wasn't right for me to say that."

"Technically, you could argue that _you_ rip off Javelin Knight—"

Ax Knight suddenly became quiet as he found a sharp, three-pointed weapon a few inches from his face. "…or not. I think—I'm just saying what the audience might think."

Trident Knight withdrew his weapon—albeit slowly—and went back to eating his breakfast. It was less than a minute before he glanced at the clock and noticed what time it was.

"Does anybody know where in NOVA's name Sir Meta Knight is? It's almost eight."

Sailor Dee walked through the door as a convenient plot device. There was also a plot gap considering that he came in from a door behind Trident Knight, which was technically nonexistent since there was only one door in the room that was on a plain wall nowhere near the table, but this is Kirby and Meta Knight's story, so the plot gap is their fault instead of mine.

"Well, I'm assuming that he's still in bed, considering that his door is closed." Said Sailor Dee in his normal, quiet voice.

Trident Knight let his fist fall to the circular table. "What. Seriously? We get our—" Ax Knight interceded at this moment to prevent Trident Knight from swearing in a K+ rated fic— "—out of bed, and he isn't even up? It's one-point-five hours AFTER everybody is supposed to be up! He expects us to get up, but—"

Trident Knight stopped again. "Well, I guess we could've slept in if we wanted. I mean, there's nothing for us to really _do_."

"But Tri," Mace Knight protested. "We've been getting up at 6:30 ever since we joined Sir Meta Knight! Back when we were with Captain Vul, we got up at 4:30! It's kind of a hard habit to break!"

Ax Knight leaned back against his chair. "Yeah, I mean, I _still_ find myself getting up early sometimes. It's like…part of my genetic coding."

Sailor Dee rubbed his eyes. "Well, we had to get up early, but only when we needed to. And we used to do 7:20, not 6:30."

If any of the Knights had had noticeable jaws, they would have dropped. "What…HOW DID YOU GET READY?!" shrieked Mace Knight.

"Well, since neither of us had to get dressed and prepped, I got up at 7:20 and ate breakfast, and then I woke up Sir Meta Knight at 7:50 so he could eat. It never took him long since he could just inhale it like Kirby. Then we went to work…we checked all the story updates and news and stuff at night, and we stayed up until 1 or 2 AM instead…"

The three Knights were dumbfounded. Sailor Dee pulled out his chair between Ax Knight and Trident Knight and sat down at the table, pouring himself a bowl of Dream Land's version of Reese's Puffs. Ax Knight reached over to Sailor Dee and straightened the Waddle Dee's sailor cap for him, then smoothed his fur down (since none of the crew had to worry about fur, they ended up brushing Sailor Dee instead; it worked out rather well for him). The four present members of the Halberd crew sat together, eating their breakfast in silence and wondering if they would get the milk before Meta Knight got it all (a frequent event at the breakfast table).

* * *

Meanwhile, Meta Knight was dreaming that he was playing the part of Luigi in a Kirby-fied final battle scene of 'Super Paper Mario'. Whether this was because he had played the game the night before or because the authoress didn't have complete Future-Project-Spoiler Insurance Coverage was 'another story'.

Meta Knight rolled his eyes (if it was possible) at the use of the word 'story' in the last sentence before walking up to Magolor unwillingly. Realizing what was about to happen, he tried turning around, but found that he couldn't. His eyes widened a little.

_Oh no, am I actually going to be mind-controlled in my own dream? Why can't—wait, __**dream?**_

Meta Knight focused all his concentration into kicking himself in the face. While he didn't see himself doing such a thing in the dream world, he definitely felt the effects of his actions. With the hope of escaping sparked in his partially-controlled mind, he tried everything he could think of to wake himself up from his dream…

CRASH!

…and succeeded. A little TOO well.

The blue puffball moaned from his self-induced pain, trying to pull his paws out from the mess of blankets. He'd dropped the pen, but he didn't feel like looking for it outside of the fact that he knew he should get up. He had to get up for another boring day of doing absolutely nothing but checking the ship. The crew had absolutely nothing besides checking the ship to do since they hadn't gotten into any fights. Since they hadn't gotten into any fights, there was nothing they needed to fix. Since they had already upgraded a lot of the ship's abilities, there was nothing left to upgrade except stuff that required extra materials. Since the crew had spent most of their money on the month's food, there wasn't much money left. Since there wasn't much money left, Meta Knight and Sailor Dee had taken the money left and spent it on video games. Since they had spent the money that was left on video games, there was no extra money left to buy candy until they did their next round of monthly odd jobs.

Since there was no money left to buy candy, that meant that Meta Knight was in a really, really bad mood getting up. He was in such a bad mood that he didn't even bother fixing the logic gaps in the previous paragraph, despite the fact that this event was pre-editing and he therefore wasn't caring about the words.

It literally sucked the motivation right out of him.

With no candy, he didn't even feel like moving.

But after about ten minutes of sulking, he rolled out of bed—and onto the corner of the _Linear Algebra_ textbook, as well as a pencil and a GameCube controller. His first priority was checking the GameCube controller to make sure it seemed like it would still work. He put it to the side before nursing his arm where the pencil had stabbed him. He really hoped that there wasn't much lead in the cut, but then he hoped that puffballs were immune to lead…and then he got tired of thinking about all the different medical ailments that could happen to him from the lead cut and just decided to wash it out. He was about to kick the _Linear Algebra_ book to the side since that would be easier to write, but he cared too much about his books to do such a thing. Instead, he carefully brushed the pages out, brushed the cover and binding off, and stuck it under his bed.

Well, he tried to. There was no space under his bed, so he stuck it under his pillow instead. That way, he could put it back later. The blue puffball threw his bedding back onto his bed before crawling out the window. He had tacked on a small ledge outside his window so that he could sit outside his window instead of sitting in the window frame. The window frame just wasn't as comfortable to sit or stand on for long periods of time, and sleeping on the windowsill was definitely out of the picture. The ledge was kind of…unsturdy, but he passed off its utter unsafeness since he had built it secretly out of scrap materials. Meta Knight was absolutely certain that it would collapse when he had first built it, but when it hadn't, he'd become more bold about stepping out on it and bringing a little extra weight onto it.

He had, however, refrained from bringing his math directories onto it because that would be just plain stupid. And because he would have to rebuild it if he wrecked it.

At this point, it's been about 263 words since Meta Knight got stabbed with the pencil. You'd think he would've forgotten about it by this point but since this all was thought process it's actually only been two seconds. Meta Knight glanced at the stinging spot on his arm before sticking his arm in his mouth. He swore it had a healing effect of some sort, or at least made it feel better. There was no scientific proof to back this up, but he'd _be_ the scientific proof if somebody ever called it. It made his arm feel better, so he didn't really care whether it was science or just his mind causing less pain to his body now that he wasn't stressed. Meta Knight stared out at the ocean, wondering at first if it was seriously sunset before realizing that no, the water was just permanently orange or purple.

If there was one downfall of living on the edge of a most-likely-and-probably-enchanted ocean-slash-bay, it was the time-of-day confusion. The water never changes colors until around sunset, right? Sort of? Maybe? Well it did in TV and video games, so suck it up and play along. Meta Knight was always a little confused living along the coast of Orange Ocean because he always looked out to see the time of day, and the area was _always tinted orange._ It drove him mad sometimes; he could never get used to it and whenever he thought it was sunset, it was like his body reset his internal clock and he couldn't go back and change it. As of late he had tried flying around more by himself _outside of the Orange Ocean area _because taking the Halberd out by itself was more work, but he couldn't _stand_ walking around the immediate area because it was all orange! He loved enchanted places and beaches, but…

…But he didn't.

Wait, what?

This was getting far too confusing for the protagonist/author/game character to keep track of. Yes, even though it was his own logic. Meta Knight sighed and flopped down on the balcony, even though he was already sitting. To fix this gap, he lay down on his back and stared up at the sky.

And then he realized that he didn't even have a back because his entire body was a circle.

"Why?" the blue puffball asked aloud. "Why has this day—section—oh, whatever it is, why has it just been useless detail-for-humor information?" His face fell into a saddened expression. "I tried to make something happen, but it's all just a bunch of words. People will think it's boring; no way I'm showing this to anyone. Not that I'd show them anyway…"

He pushed his feet against the small railing, not noticing or caring that it was weak and probably unsafe to push on. "Why is this story just seeming to write itself? It's like I don't even have any control over the words, even though I'm attempting to channel them…maybe I'm just not good enough to be a writer? Maybe the words are just being written and I'm fooling myself into thinking that I'm writing them…but, Kirby seemed to be writing his words! But he wasn't writing anything that was actually a part of the story. He just wrote up a bunch of…somethings. Cats? Food? I dunno. Maybe it's just me. But…what if this whole thing is just _boring?_ What if I'M the boring one? What if my entire purpose in life is just so that the main heroes of Dream Land aren't all based on the color red even though they're alluded to the color blue?"

Meta Knight sighed. "Yeah, my purpose in life is just to serve as the misunderstood, second-to-last boss. I got a few playable options in some of the games, but since I never bother Kirby for dumb things or jealousy—in other words, Dedede mentality—oh wait, I do play games with him, so I get cameos there. But since I don't get involved in the villains' affairs, I'm just out of the way. No cameos for me…"

The blue puffball sighed and his wings sagged. He kicked the balcony rail; then grabbed it as he pulled himself up. Unfortunately, since he put all his weight on pulling himself toward it and then _leaning_ on it, the railing gave out and he ended up plunging over the side of the Halberd. The camera stayed focused on the balcony solely for comedic reasons, then zoomed down to where Meta Knight had landed. There were some splintered boards from the railing on top of him, though surprisingly enough there were no stars spinning around his head…body…whatever, which was a wasted opportunity considering all the stuff about Star Warriors and Warpstars and black holes (which are imploded stars) and Popstar and et cetera. Meta Knight moaned, trying to reach for the pen. Once he had it in his paw, he dragged it along the metal deck, hoping for it to leave a mark.

"Please, please. I don't care that there's a bunch of stuff piled up on top of me. I don't care that it hurts. I don't care that I fell down a really far distance and didn't even bother measuring it. I don't care that I'm probably not in my right mind when I'm saying this. I DON'T. CARE. I'm useless in my own story and my own instance; just look at all the paragraphs above this one. Even my dialogue is useless. I'm TIRED of being useless. Can't you just, y'know, make me UN-useless?"

The green pen glowed briefly, and his eyes sparked in hope despite them being only halfway-open. "Great. Thanks. Can you just do…something. What would make me better? Does nobody like math nerds or fantasy lovers? Should I have not drank that potion that made my eyes change colors? _IknewIshould'velookedforalabelinsteadofdrinkingitbecauseitwassugary._ Is my personality just that un-interesting?"

Then he paused. "Yeah, that's a good idea! My personality is ALWAYS what gives people misconceptions about me! It's ALWAYS what gets me in trouble! It's the root of all my problems!"

(Of course, he was ignoring the fact that his personality was the root of a lot of his solutions, as well.)

He started scribbling on his paw desperately, the green ink actually forming a wetness like water held in his paws.

"All right, pen; I'm counting on you. Please, change my personality somehow—or whatever's messed up with me. I don't care how many times you have to change it, just DO something to make me a better character or something! I dunno, make me stronger or more socially inclined or—"

The pen, unfortunately, did not give him a chance to finish his sentence.

The blue puffball fell unconscious by the magic of the pen, wincing in pain at the effects of his actions. The reasoning for such is because he overused its ink for his said task. How would this new narrator know of this?

Simply because this temporary narrator IS the pen, and would thus be fully conscious of the consequences surrounding its misuse. And the pen was going to attempt to avoid talking in first person.

Regardless of who is narrating, this circular creature—Meta Knight, if the pen is not mistaken; is that even his real name?—had used far too much of the pen's ink to accomplish his task. Though the pen would require a slightly larger amount to accomplish doing this task to an author, it certainly did not need such a significant quantity as what had been poured out. Had he not used so much, perhaps the pen would have given him a chance to finish his sentence. Alas, he disregarded this and since he did not give any specific details as to what he wanted changed about himself, the pen decided to do it itself, which would be quite fun considering that for more ink used, the more extreme the effect would be…The pen grinned to itself, already dreaming of all the fun it could have. Then it caught itself almost abusing the use of ellipses points and decided to end the chapter instead as a convenient break. Its formality certainly was not fitting of the story, and it would give a fitting break from all the words contained in the chapter so far. Yes, indeed, the pen thought, it would be a very fitting break indeed…


End file.
